


I Dream of Roses

by TheStarsMissMe



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Death, Egobang - Freeform, Flowers, Hanahaki Disease, Hysteria, Imagry, Love, M/M, Male Homosexuality, One-Sided Attraction, Polygrumps, ShipGrumps, YouTube, Youtuber - Freeform, dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 18:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7724848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStarsMissMe/pseuds/TheStarsMissMe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I could never see flowers too many times; I could never be tired of their sweet fragrance. Each one was a delicate bloom, no matter if they lived in a formal garden or a waste land. Their petals were delicate works of art and their hues were medicine for my soul. I knew it wasn’t just me that felt that way though. People brought flowers into hospitals and graveyards, we send them to express our love and gratitude, and we plant them in our yards though they bear no edible fruit.<br/>There is something about their beauty I need for my whole being, to be fully human, and I wonder if we’re all a bit like that.<br/>Unfortunately, this was the one time that my love cannot be my savior.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Dream of Roses

            Flowers… I love flowers…

            All of my close friends know of my obsession. They’ve seen my many vases and mason jars decorated with divergent species of greenery. For some reason, this small fact about myself surprises many people who ask about my hobbies besides being a video game commentator on Youtube. They see the lush and leafy plants and automatically assume they belong to Suzy or that my wife is the caretaker. She only smiles, her adorable pixie nose twitching as she says, “Oh, this isn’t my doing. They all belong to Arin.”

            I glanced over at the table I purposely set up for my children to grow and prosper by the giant glass window. With weak and tired legs, I walked over and studied my beautiful creations. The flowers sat peacefully on the table, their once beautiful petals curling at the edges from the summer heat, already their stalks were limp and whenever I picked them up, their heads fell with gravity towards the table.  
            I inwardly cursed. _I should have put them in the vases I bought the minute I got home._ My hands convulsed violently as they had a deathly clasp on the edge of the table. With great caution, one at a time the wilting plants moved from their small cup home to a brand new and roomier space. My fingers occasionally fingered the velvet petals and stalks.  
I could never see flowers too many times; I could never be tired of their sweet fragrance. Each one was a delicate bloom, no matter if they lived in a formal garden or a waste land. Their petals were delicate works of art and their hues were medicine for my soul. I knew it wasn’t just me that felt that way though. People brought flowers into hospitals and graveyards, we send them to express our love and gratitude, and we plant them in our yards though they bear no edible fruit.  
There is something about their beauty I need for my whole being, to be fully human, and I wonder if we’re all a bit like that.

            Unfortunately, this was the one time that my love cannot be my savior.

 

            Earlier this month, I discovered I came into contact with a very rare disease that less than one percent of the population possesses: Hanahaki Disease. It is an illness born from one-sided love where the patient throws up and coughs up flower petals. The cause is when a person either rejects another’s love or is just oblivious to it.  
My doctor explained this disease to me with the _exact_ wording. I called bullshit. This disease was nothing but _fiction_! How could this be true?

 

 _“I know this is a lot to take in,” my doctor spoke solemnly, “but we-”_  
_“S-So you’re telling me that there are literally flowers growing in my body?!” I stared at my body, flabbergasted. “How the **fuck** did that happen?!”_  
_“Please, Mr. Hanson. Let me finish.” I wanted to argue more, stir the pot for answers but fighting with a man who knows my condition more than my outbursts and temper tantrums hushed me. I sat down with my fingers tangling in my hair._  
_“As I was saying, the infection can be removed through surgery. There is a con-”_  
_“Please, doctor!” I pleaded, “I’ll do anything to stop this fucking infection!”_  
_He stood there, still and silent. “If you get this infection removed, the feelings disappear along with the petals.” His saddened eyes bored into mine. “So whoever you have caught feelings for, you will no longer feel that love ever again. There’s no guarantee that even a platonic relationship will be felt either.”_

_I didn’t have any words to say; only silence sat by my side. I could feel the fear restlessly rummaging through my heart, my eyes wide as they stared at the bleak tiled floor.  
            “…Not…even…like friendship…?” The response to my question was a gentle head shake. _

_  
Not even be friends…? Was that something I was willing to risk for him because of this flowering disease? We were best friends for years…! We ran an internet gaming channel together; we told each other our secrets that we swore to drag with us to our graves; we have never been apart! It was a kind of friendship that bloomed in the center of my heart – the kind of friendship that grew from the seed basking in the warm soil to a vast tree with many ups and downs, many – but not enough to disguise the enormity or the grandeur of such a tree. The sheer brilliance and beauty of it shined above all._

_Because of that friendship and our strong bond, I fell in love._

  
_“Do you still want to go through with the surgery?” My doctor asked, breaking my train of thought._  
_“I-I…I…”_

 

            I walked like my limbs didn’t really belong to me and each step was a negotiation rather than an order. Everything hurt now. Every _damn_ thing. I winced to cross the floor, heading back to my bed that had a small sheet of petals. The beautiful rainbow created a kind of cocoon or nest that surrounded me. I was in beautiful agony, more flower petals slowly grew and dropped in a pleasant kind of waltzing rhythm, my own flowers watching me with their wilted sorrowful bodies.  
Coughing, I sat back up and started crying, sobs wracking my body. More petals cascaded down my wet cheeks, blood dripping harshly against the yellow flowers, and my dry sobs echoed in the empty room.

 

 _“Mr. Hanson…? Do you still want to proceed with the treatment…?” My doctor asked again with caution and compassion._  
_“I…don’t think I can…”My body vibrated with negative vibes, my emotions almost eradicated my soul._  
_A soft sigh escaped the medical practitioner. “I know this is a hard decision for you, Mr. Hanson, but going through the treatment will cure you. You won’t have these intolerable pains and aches…! All for the cost of not having any feelings to the person you desire-”_  
_“He means more than that…! Don’t you **ever** talk about him like he is something worth throwing away!” Hot tears spilled from my eyes. I angrily wiped them away with the bottom of my palm but froze, eyes full of fear. A soft hue of purple streaked my rattling hand. In the center of my palm was a wilted petal._

_It had already begun._

            I cried harder, knowing my time was up. My love was unrequited and this was the punishment. Dancing flowers, deadly and alluring, the one of few things I had a deep passion for, was going to be the death of me.

            And it was all because of him.

            My body threw itself back down on the bed, boosting the fallen petals both dead and alive in the air. My red eyes watched them as they danced back to me, a thick streak of sunlight caressing my face. My mind envisioned him where my eyes were looking at: the ceiling. Instinctively, my clammy hand reached out as if to grabbed him and pull him close to me. I saw everything of his in my fantasy. His face, his voice, his body, his slight smirk when he laughed, the way he furrowed his eyebrows when he lost at a game, the way he would hiccup when he was in a laughing fit, all so captivating and enticing. I grimaced as I remembered the many times I tried confessing to him, but he only saw our love as platonic, nothing more, nothing less. The sobs stopped, my chest constricted, and I laid there silently.

            That was him, always so polite and kind. That was many weeks ago, and after that was when the pain started settling in my body. That was when I had my dose of reality. That was when the flowers started to fall.  
At first it was subtle, like something straight out of some crappy cartoon I used to watch on Saturdays and then mimic in my own creations of animation. But, it soon became hard to walk, hard to breath, hard to live. The beautiful aquas and the deep crimsons of the petals obstructed my breathing, and tore apart my heart. The soft purples and the intense pinks ripped quietly and delicately from the inside my bloodstream. I soon was rendered unable to move, and had been laying in the caress of the kaleidoscope of colored petals for three days. But now, my time was up.

 

_I was losing my mind. I felt it unravel, the threads of every happy memory I had with him and could ever once recall, all but a disarray of strings scattered around my feet. My knees dug into the floor as I hit the ground, my hands unsteady as they silently clawed at the linoleum. I opened my mouth, but not a sound comes came out. My head violently quivered as if there was a drill to the back of my skull.  
My eyes saw nothing; I could only envision black. My mouth hung open, an eternal silenced scream, saliva dripping from behind my teeth._

_And then I cried._

_I cried like there was too much raw pain inside of myself that couldn’t be contained. I cried like my spirit needed to break loose from my skin, desperate to release an elemental rage on the world. The soothing words of my doctor made no difference at all. I was beyond all reason, beyond all natural methods of calming._

            I heard a soft knock from the edges of my field of my consciousness. My door creaked open and soft footsteps padded inside my room.  
            “H-H…Hello? Arin…?” A voice called quietly.

            It was his voice.

            “Arin…! Arin!” I felt long fingers vice-grip my shoulder, shaking me like I was a child who slept in too long instead of doing their assigned chores. “Suzy…! Anybody! Please call 911! Arin needs he-”  
I couldn’t hear him very well; my world was muffled like someone was trying to communicate with me while submerged in water. I couldn’t talk or acknowledge that I heard him, but I exhaled slowly in an effort to show him I recognized he were here.  
Warm hands pawed at my face. He forced my lolled head to look at him. His crying was both ferocious and noisy. He blinked briny tears from bloodshot eyes, his thick lashes stuck together in clumps as if he went swimming. The tears made wet tracks down his long face and dripped from his wobbling chin. Clear watery snot streaked from his flaring nostrils down his red mottled skin to his open quivering lips. His hands rhythmically clenched at my shoulders as if there could be some violent solution to his pain if only he could find it. His mouth kept moving frantically and his eyes searched for some type of salvation. I couldn’t help but lazily smile up at him. He didn’t mean for this to happen. I know he didn’t. It was my fault for falling in love with him.

            I saw a hint of a mild orange flutter out of my mouth and into the fuzzy regions of my eyesight. This was nice; no, this was perfect. Between the warmth of his hands, the vibrations coming from his voice, and the beautiful myriad of colors taking up all my vision, I was finally feeling peace for the first time in weeks.

 

 _My specialist helped me back onto my feet once my crying fit finally subsided. We stood there in the off white room, listening to the soft hum of phone calls, happy voices, and clicking heels._  
_“I…know this is a lot to handle…” My doctor paused occasionally. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was trying to choose his words carefully and bracing himself for any other emotional brouhahas. “…but there…isn’t much time left to ponder…”_  
_“I’m…sorry, doctor,” I whispered hoarsely. “I can’t go through with this…”_  
_“But why…?” Even though I stood by my previous answer, he was still aghast by my decision. “This operation will save your life…! Love is a wonderful thing, I know, but it’s not worth dying over!”_

  
_I couldn’t help but softly chuckle. “That’s where you’re wrong, doc,” My heart, not too long ago heavy from sorrow and anxiety, lightened and warmed my chest. “The power of love brings hope, yet at times the steps towards love cause pain and those towards a life of loneliness are comfortable in their familiarity. We are born to love and with all necessary courage to walk the path to it, no matter the roughness, no matter the hardship.”_

_His face nestled in my brain, my memories. “Love isn’t a throwaway emotion, something to invoke on a whim. It isn’t transitory like lust or something to regret like anger. When love is allowed to permeate ever action, influence every thought, guide every deed, it leads to an inner peace not attainable any other way. It is the light in every dark night, shining brightly into each recess of the mind, healing, igniting passions and that would otherwise have died. Love leads the way to being who we were born to be, people who prize peace, dignity, and honor, people who find solutions that work for many instead of the few. Love is what we must hold for one another, especially when tensions are high, for it is the trapdoor in the prison wall, the only one.”_

_A sharp pain stabbed at my side, my hand gripping the pain until it passed. With tired eyes, I smirked weakly at my doctor. “This is what they don’t teach you in med school. They can show you how to sew a heart back together in ten seconds flat, but they can never teach you how to mend an emotionally broken heart.”_

            I didn’t feel any pain, I didn’t feel any burning sensation. I felt…colorful…as if the petals had infected me with their vivid and intense hues, making my nerves feel like fireworks. It was comforting to not feel pain at last, but instead feel unity and…vivid.  
My last remaining heartbeats fluttered at the thought of being like a kaleidoscope and the thought of being so close to him. I could hear his voice, but not the words, I could feel his warmth but not see his figure. I closed my eyes, shutting out the intense colors.

            His voice grew frantic as I drew my last breath.

 

            And I let go.

 

            A single flower petal, so black, colorless, and absolute like the silhouettes of trees that was still as an oil painting and darker than ravens, floated out of my mouth and danced down amongst the explosion of color.

 

_“Wow…this person you love really is lucky to have someone like you,” The doctor turn on his heel and started scuffing his feet out the door. He stopped midway and glanced in my direction. With a mournful smile, eyes somber, he muttered, “It’s a shame he couldn’t return your undying feelings for you.”_

_With that last statement leaving a stale taste in the air, he vanished._

_I sat there, alone, in the small claustrophobic room for mere minutes before mustering the strength to start walking out. My eyes traveled back to the now almost faded purple stain on my hand._

_“It’s a shame Dan will never ever know my true feelings for him…”_

**Author's Note:**

> I cried writing this story. I hope it tugged at your heart strings as much as it did mine creating it. <3


End file.
